Welsh Grand Committee (Scrutiny)

Ann Clwyd Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I am glad to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) on securing this Adjournment debate. It was secured because, as many hon. Members have said, there was no possibility of a Welsh Grand Committee. I find that amazing, given the importance of the Government’s plans for the people we represent. It will be looked on as a great slight to the people of Wales that the Secretary of State for Wales, despite all the pleas made to her, has refused to have a sitting of the Welsh Grand Committee.

There is some kind of alternative. As some of my hon. Friends have mentioned, we are to have a meeting tomorrow of the Welsh parliamentary party. A meeting of the Welsh parliamentary party can be called when no other forum exists to discuss issues of importance to Wales. I have invited all Welsh MPs—hon. Members of all parties who hold Welsh constituencies. I understand that all the Conservatives—there are not many of them—have turned down the invitation, which I find extremely disappointing.

[Jonathan Evans]

I fully intend to attend the meeting.

[Ann Clwyd]

I am very pleased to hear that. Does anyone else want to express their intention to attend? They will be very welcome, because we shall have a proper debate on issues of Government policy as they particularly affect our constituents.

The debate on the Floor of the House last night was very truncated because of the guillotine that fell at various points, but it was obvious from the passions that were shown and expressed during that very short debate that people who represent Welsh constituents feel that they are being sold short because they have not been able to have the full discussion that we all wanted on important constitutional reforms that affect our constituencies.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the main Chamber, with MPs from all over the United Kingdom, the focus has to be on the principles in the Bill? There is no opportunity to cover in detail the issues that we want to discuss, which we in Wales can understand and would like to have a deeper discussion on, but with which we do not like to burden all our colleagues.

[Ann Clwyd]

I thank my hon. Friend. She reinforces the point that I am making: people feel frustrated and sold short because they cannot express their views. Tomorrow is an opportunity for MPs of all parties to come together and express their views in the Welsh parliamentary party.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Looking around the room, we can see that 29 Welsh MPs are present. It looks as though the Lib Dems are in favour of a sitting of the Welsh Grand Committee, and although it was only implied, it looked as though the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) was in favour of a sitting of the Welsh Grand Committee. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State should listen to the people and representatives of Wales?

[Ann Clwyd]

Yes, I agree. It is deplorable that the Secretary of State is not here this morning. As I remember it, Cabinet meetings usually last for about an hour, so she still has time to come to this debate. She may be listening, but I am sure that we would find time to hear her even if it was only for a very short time. If she is not able to come today, perhaps she could come tomorrow. She would receive a very warm welcome—except, of course, that she is not a Member with a Welsh constituency, so the rules of the Welsh parliamentary party, unfortunately, on this occasion will exclude her. However, I am sure that if she wants her views to be made known, she will make them known through other hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans), who has shown his enthusiasm, even if he is alone, about being present at the meeting of the Welsh parliamentary party tomorrow.

It will be obvious to the people of Wales who represents their interests in this place. It will be clear at the next Welsh Assembly elections that the people of Wales will be voting for the party that most reflects their interests in this place. The Welsh Assembly feels particularly short-changed by how it has been treated by the Government, so that too will be reflected in the results of the next Welsh Assembly elections.

[Mr Havard]

May I thank my right hon. Friend on her initiative on the Welsh parliamentary party meeting tomorrow? Does she agree that one of the difficulties with such a body is that it does not benefit from the services of the House? For example, I understand that there will not be a Hansard record or any of the attendant publicity that comes from a proper discussion in this place.

It is rather disappointing that the press of the country do not seem interested in this discussion. My right hon. Friend talks about what is happening—the power grab in Westminster—being clear to the people of Wales. However, it will not be clear to them, because the press are not taking an interest in educating the civic society of Wales about what is happening—a constitutional change on which it was never given the opportunity to express an opinion.

[Ann Clwyd]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is one of my neighbours. At one time we shared a constituency, when it was Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare in the time of Keir Hardie. However, Keir Hardie, who fought for so many rights for the people of Wales over the years, would be very aggrieved today if he saw what was happening in the House of Commons.

I draw attention to one or two things in the press today. The Archbishop of Wales has thought it necessary to make various points, criticising how benefit claimants are being portrayed by the UK Government. We all feel the same way. He said that the mark of a civilised society was the way that it cared for its worst-off members and that the UK Government

“talks about benefit frauds, as if the country is full of people who are out to milk the system.”

Some people are out to milk the system, but it is not the benefit frauds—it is the bankers and the people the Conservative party represents in this place.

The Conservatives have failed to penalise the people who put us in this financial situation. It was not the people we represent, the people of Wales who will now be affected by the cuts that the Government will put in place and the thousands of people who will lose their jobs in the public sector and, we are now told, in the private sector as well. Because of the VAT increase to 20% in January, tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs in the private sector.

Dr Morgan went on to say:

“One of the great characteristics of the mining communities was that they did care for the less fortunate—they made sure that widows and orphans had enough to eat and coal to heat their homes. They knew what it meant to be members of one society. The Big Society concept would not have been strange to them—they implemented it long before this Government thought of it.”

[Chris Bryant]

Archbishop Barry said all those things at St Andrew’s church in Tonypandy on Sunday evening. He was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Tonypandy riots, which falls at the end of this week.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to the many other issues on which we should also be having Welsh Grand Committees, in particular the effect of the comprehensive spending review. Is she worried that we might have no debate in the next few months on how that affects Wales? We might have no St David’s day debate next year and, because it is a two-year Session, no debate on the effects on Wales of another Queen’s Speech or legislative reform. All that is making the voice of Wales more marginalised in the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ann Clwyd]

I entirely agree. The fact that we are not able to debate issues of great importance to the people we represent is outrageous. That outrage was clearly expressed on the Floor of the House of Commons last night. There were many passionate speeches, in particular because people feel that a constitutional change of the kind proposed by the Government is of such momentous importance to Wales, where 25% of Members of Parliament will disappear. That is of great importance.

I do not want to anticipate what the Welsh parliamentary party will decide tomorrow, but I suspect that if the Welsh Grand Committee is not able to meet because the Secretary of State says no, the Welsh parliamentary party might decide to assume some of the Grand Committee’s functions. It might decide, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis) suggested to me earlier, to go on a tour of Wales, to bring to the people of Wales the very issues that we cannot discuss in this place.

There will be momentous changes in how the vast majority of the elected MPs for Wales in this place decide to take matters into their own hands. We cannot rely on the Government. We have never been able to rely on a Tory Government. The people of Wales will see once again the kind of 18-year Tory Government that they have had before. We warned them at the last election of what might happen, but we did not, unfortunately, at that point think about the Lib Dems joining the Tories, because nothing in the Lib Dem election manifesto suggested that they would ever dream of joining the Tory party. They may want to think again; they would be very welcome to join us, in particular on issues that they feel strongly about and about which their former leader again spoke so passionately last night.

The people of Wales will see this Parliament and this Government for what they are—an insult to the people of Wales. We have a Government the people of Wales have never wanted. They have never wanted that Government in the past, they do not want them in the present and they definitely do not want them in the future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—